


A Drink With Friends

by unbelievable2



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M, Sentinel Thursday Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1226677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbelievable2/pseuds/unbelievable2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the ones left behind you feel sorry for....</p><p>(Not in fact a death story)       For Sentinel Thursday Challenge #485 - "beer"</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drink With Friends

Simon Banks twisted the cap off the bottle and poured the golden liquid slowly, almost reverently, then sat back in the garden chair and raised the glass up to the evening sun. It had been a hot, tiring day clearing his garden, but the fatigue felt good – a virtuous hurt – and the beer was the reward he had been promising himself.

He took his first sip, and, despite his thirst, did his best to savour the coolness, the refreshing bitterness. It was a ritual learnt long ago, in his own kitchen in fact, when Sandburg first introduced him to the joys of the Wasp Sting micro-brewery. He and Jim had come round for something or other – furniture-moving or picture-hanging or some such excuse - and had stayed for pizza and beer. Except Blair had insisted on bringing this particular brew, recently discovered.

Simon still bought that brew – not just out of loyalty, he really enjoyed the taste. Now he sipped again, and held the glass to his forehead to cool off. He could picture it all now. Blair at the table, opening bottles, Jim leaning against the refrigerator with his usual expression of amused tolerance at the excited monologue which accompanied the ceremonial pouring. Thirsty and impatient, Simon had heard probably one word in four:

“…tiny, tiny operation, maybe ten people…”  
“… farmers’ markets, you know, country fairs…”  
“…actual spring water from the Cascades….”  
“…and those hops I’ve seen myself, right on the meadows around ….”  
“…native peoples of the Puget Sound area frequently…..”

And then Jim had detached himself from the refrigerator and leant down, wrapping his arms around Blair’s shoulders and putting a palm softly over his mouth…

“Tell Simon later, Chief, before he dies of thirst.”

… and had kissed him, soundly, warmly, without any embarrassment, right on the corner of his jaw. Blair had blushed and squirmed a little, though clearly happy, and Simon had wondered again at the unexpected ease with which Jim Ellison, once he had taken the plunge, had adjusted to this new relationship, leaving Sandburg - surprisingly - as the bashful one. Amongst friends though, their deep commitment was not only clear to see but also happily demonstrative, and Simon, conservative to a fault though he was, had nevertheless found himself completely at ease with his friends’ new status.

So he had sipped the beer as Blair had instructed and savoured the unusual but refreshing taste. And then he had eagerly gulped some more, until Jim had said, with a twinkle:

“Go easy there, Simon. The size of those bottles is in inverse proportion to their price. Plus the store only had four.”

He sipped again, back now in the present in his evening garden, the taste bringing back the old memories, bittersweet just like his drink, and as always his detective’s mind reviewed the evidence against him. To his eternal shame he had never seen how things had changed for them. Only hindsight had shown the clues he should have spotted at the time – the tense faces, the muttered conversations, the lack of laughter - which should have been so obvious to a close friend but in fact only registered after it happened. Only when they dragged the wreckage from the canyon bottom and he started asking questions about the cause of the accident did scattered images from those last weeks start slipping into place. 

But there had been nothing left in the twisted, burnt metal to suggest anything other than it being a tragic accident. Nothing there, but that little ball of doubt and suspicion had lodged in his brain that day and hadn’t shifted over the years. Never would now, he supposed.

He raised the glass to the light again and admired the condensation trickling down the sides, the refraction of the light, the play of the bubbles.

_“Simon, you wouldn’t believe the way they brew this….”_

The forensic report had said the burn damage indicated an instant fireball, which had left only the barest traces of bone and fabric, but the requisite DNA evidence had been there. There was little left to tell what had caused the car to leave the road at that point, but patrons of a campsite twenty miles further up the track and in a café closer to Cascade had told officers that Blair and Jim had been arguing bitterly about something, and had almost come to blows at one point. It had seemed so out of character with the devotion he was used to seeing that he couldn’t believe it at first. Instead, he had had Major Crimes reopen all likely cases, certain that they’d find some ancient vendetta, but the work had revealed nothing. In the greatest waste of potential the world had ever seen, Blair Sandburg and Jim Ellison had fought in a speeding vehicle on a cliff road on a wet day …. and he had lost them.

And that had been that. There had been a memorial service on a surprisingly sunny October morning and someone had broken into the Loft whilst most of Cascade P D had been paying their last respects. A rough, vicious job, with personal effects and momentoes strewn everywhere, though nothing obviously taken except for Blair’s laptop. Whether papers were missing he really couldn’t have said; Blair’s life revolved around piles of paper – who could tell?

He had gathered up the scattered photos left in the wreckage, replaced them in Jim’s albums and brought them home. He looked at them from time to time; even caught Daryl once, poring over them with an intensity that had forced Simon to move silently away and wipe his eyes.

Eventually it had been put down to a minor burglary, and, as with the accident itself, most people had moved on. Simon had brooded, and he continued to brood, on days when the thoughts took him, or moments like this caused him to reminisce. What had their whispers been about? Why hadn’t they confided in him? Had Blair’s fears about Jim’s vulnerability to outside interests - confessed one tense evening when more scotch than was wise had been imbibed - finally been realised? And most indulgent of all, what if they had faked it? It wouldn’t have been beyond Sandburg’s imaginative powers, or Jim’s technical abilities. 

That would be nice, Simon reflected; the idea that somewhere or other Jim and Blair were living under assumed names, far from the reach of nefarious agencies and government programmes. His fantasy, of course, but better than the cold reality of their deaths. He’d stick to that, he concluded, and drink their health, wherever they were, in Wasp Sting micro-brew. It was a comfort of sorts, but, man, did he miss them.

……

He raised his glass to the setting sun and watched the trickles of condensation crawl downwards, twisting his hand this way and that.

“Are you going to drink that beer, or write a dissertation on it?”

He didn’t reply, so Jim came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pressing his face into the junction of throat and collarbone. Blair stretched his neck to allow Jim better access and his lips parted in pleasure as Jim kissed his way up to an earlobe.

“Hmmm?”

“Uh-huh,” replied Blair, placing his drink carefully back on the rickety table next to the bottle and turning to give Jim more attention. After a while Jim reached out and picked up the glass, taking a swig and then offering it to Blair who took a long gulp, Jim watching him all the while.

“You don’t have to do the ritual here, you know, Chief. It’s only the local tap-water.”

“It’s nice to do.” Blair rubbed the glass against his own hot cheek and then Jim’s. “Like a little connection, still. And it helps me relax, thinking about those good things.”

“Not good enough here for you, babe?” Jim’s voice was teasing.

“Oh, you know what I mean. I’m where I want to be, with you. Nothing could be better than that. But there’s people I miss. You, do too. And things I can’t forget.”

Jim slid onto the bench beside him and drew him close.

“Jitters again?”

“A bit. Some days are better than others, you know that.”

“Yeah. Look, Chief, everything is fine. The perimeter is sealed, the boat is fuelled and ready, the food is stored and the well is still working fine, and the mice have left the fifty dollar bills alone. That’s worth some relaxation, surely?”

Blair looked up at him.

“Yeah, okay, man. We live to fight another day.”

“I’m a lover not a fighter, babe. And I can prove it.”

Blair punched him in the side, but started grinning nonetheless. Jim took the glass back and downed most of the golden liquid.

“What was that micro brew you really liked, again?”

“Wasp Sting.”

“Oh, yeah. Simon liked that a lot as well, didn’t he?”

Blair's smile was sad now; Jim squeezed his shoulder.

“One day, babe. One day.”

Blair picked up the bottle and together they toasted the setting sun.

 

_-Fin-_


End file.
